Thursday, March 29, 2012

Air Malta's A320 '9H-AEF' has returned to Malta IAP this afternoon, around 1230LT, from Budapest where it has been resprayed by Lufthansa Technik in the livery of its future operator OLT Express. The A320 is being dry-leased by Air Malta to OLT Express for a number of years. It will to re-registered as 'SP-IAD' by the end of the month before being delivered to Poland.

An Air France B747-400 (F-GISD), performing flight AFR3591 from Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International (Mauritius) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle (France) had to divert to Malta International Airport this early morning due to medical emergency. The aircraft landed safely around 0440LT and departed again, to Paris-CDG, around 0645LT.

Friday, March 23, 2012

It was a grand arrival for Air Malta's Airbus A320 9H-AEO this afternoon, which has been rebranded with the Valletta 2018 logo to promote Valletta’s bid to become European Capital of Culture 2018.

The aircraft returned to Malta from Shannon in Ireland where it had been getting its brand new look, sporting Valletta's iconic skyline, in the past days. It came to Malta with flight number KM2018, a number specifically chosen to commemorate the event.

Prior to landing, Captain L. Gatt, who was flying the aircraft, performed a fly-past over the Luqa airstrip and upon landing, it was given a water cannon salute by two vehicles from M.I.A.'s fire-fighting section that were parked on each side of the taxiway. (Source: timesofmalta.com)

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Malta International Airport p.l.c. has reported a pre-tax profit of €18.92 million in 2011, an increase of 11.5% over 2010 (€16.97 million). The company said that passenger traffic increased by 6.5% over the record year figures of 2010. As a result of this increase in passenger traffic, revenue increased from €51.34 million to €52.43 million. The revenue from the aviation sector increased from €38.39 million to €39.20 million whilst the Retail and Property sector increased from €12.46 million to €12.62 million. The operating costs of the Group were maintained at the 2010 level. Staff costs decreased by 10.5% or €0.94 million mostly as a result of early retirement schemes initiated in previous years. However, a new retirement scheme was initiated in 2011 costing approximately €1 million. (Source: timesofmalta.com)

Monday, March 12, 2012

Air Malta's Airbus A320-214 (9H-AEF, c/n. 2142) has departed from Malta IAP for the last time this morning in full Air Malta livery to Budapest for respray in the colours of its new opeator. The A320 is being dry-leased by Air Malta to OLT Express (formerly Yes Airlines) for a couple of years. The aircraft will be de-registered from the Maltese Aircraft Register and will be re-registered on the Polish Aircraft Register by the end of the month.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Passenger movements at Malta IAP in February reached 169,689, 3% less when compared to February 2011. Seat capacity for the month decreased to 245,231 seats, i.e. 10.6% less than Feb-11. The average seat load factor grew by 5.5% in this same month, following a similar increase (5.1%) registered in Jan-12.

M.I.A. plc in a statement pointed out that the month’s results need to take into consideration the extraordinary influx of traffic arrivals from Libya for a total of 5,500 passenger movements in February last year. Moreover, one must also factor in the extra day (29th), due to the leap year, on which Malta Airport had 5,364 passenger movements.

The German and UAE markets grew remarkably in February, by 34.6% and 18.6% respectively, and the U.K. market grew by a slight 0.1%. The French and Italian market decreased by 24.6% and 14.4% respectively.

January-February 2012: For the first two months of the year, passenger movements decreased by 2.6%, with aircraft movements decreasing by 9.6% and seat capacity decreasing by 10.2%. In the same period, the average seat load factor registered an increase of 5.2 percentage points, the minimum take-off weight decreased by 8.9%, whereas cargo and mail were almost the same with an increase of 1.9%. (Source: timesofmalta.com)

The Armed Forces of Malta has taken delivery today of its second Hawker Beechcraft B200 King Air maritime patrol aircraft.

The aircraft (carrying test registration D-IMPB) was flown to Malta direct from Braunschweig, Germany, piloted by Captain K. Kuehl, the test pilot of Aerodata and Major G. Abela. It was escorted into Maltese airspace by the AFM's first King Air, AS1126, flown by Major M. Said and Lieutenant P. Carabez.

The 'new' King Air touched down on RWY 31 at Malta IAP at 1503LT, after performing a very low flypast accompanied by King Air AS1126. The second King Air will be commissioned into the Air Wing of the Armed Forces of Malta in the coming weeks as 'AS1227'.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

This summer Air Malta will again operate charter flights to and from six regional airports in the UK. As from May 1st, the Maltese airline will operate weekly charter flights to/from Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Newcastle and Norwich airports. The charter operations to these airports will be in addition to the airline’s regular schedule services to and from London Heathrow and Gatwick airports as well as to Manchester. These charter services will run till Oct. 30th. (Source: di-ve.com)